Dynamic Pressure-Dependent Simulation of Water Distribution Networks Considering Volume-Driven Demands Based on Noniterative Application of EPANET 2

Abstract

EPANET 2 software has been widely used among researchers and practitioners from its inception for hydraulic analysis. This technical note presents a method to simulate pressure-dependent volume-based demands in a single extended-period simulation run of EPANET 2. In the proposed method, artificial strings made up of a pipe with a minor loss, pressure-sustaining valve, pipe of negligible resistance, and tank are added to the demand nodes before running the hydraulic analysis. The time required to satisfy a volume-based demand is determined as the time required to fill the artificial tank connected to the demand node for normal and pressure-deficient conditions. All the simulations were carried out using the available functions of the graphical user interface of EPANET 2. The proposed method was applied to a two-source looped network available from the literature and additionally compared with an existing method available in the literature using two example networks.